Our Jerusalem

(Eli Hart, B'nai Elim) I walked out back this morning, as is my habit, to decide what my topic for the day would be. Watching the trees sway in the wind brought to mind the spirit of God moving across the face of the Earth. A sobering thought indeed. My eldest son Akiva joined me and shared his morning thoughts. My reverie came to a screeching halt as I listened to him.He went back to the house and I considered what we had discussed.

Wherever we Jews are in this world, we face Jerusalem when we pray. Many of us have a framed decorative plaque or sign on one of the East facing walls in our home to remind us of the diection of the Holy City of God. This sign is called a Mizrach sign, which means East.Apparently Akiva had been pondering our habit of facing East when he reached a conclusion and ask my thoughts on the subject. I answered the way any Jew would have. We face Jerusalem because that is where our Temple once stood.It is the place where the glory of God resided in the holy of holies.

His novel and new idea, as far as I know, was that we no longer face something holy, but the abomination of Islam when we pray. This same way of thinking would also apply to praying at the Kotel, the western wall. I was stunned. He said that as we pray there, below the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the rock, we are standing beneath what Torah calls a "high place." I could give no arguement to his conclusions.Torah is very specific, unyeilding and inflexible on this topic.We were commanded to tear down the high places and ashtoreth poles which were used to worship false gods.

Israel was condemned by God for allowing these things in the Land throughout it's history. How is it that we, after all our self-induced suffering, still allow this to continue today? We pray and cry out to our God daily to return to us and to restore us to our former glory while we allow this symbol of Islam to stand. I can no longer in good conscience face East when I pray to the God of Israel, and will cease this practice immediately. I will henceforth face any other direction as long as this shrine to a false god and his prophet is allowed to make a once holy place desolate of the glory of the God of Israel.

This god of Islam, which Muslim's call Allah, can in no wise be the God of Torah. Allah was the god of the Koreish Tribe, the tribe of Mohammed's father. They were idol worshipers with many gods at the time. To believe that the Quran was dictated by a messenger of God to Mohammed is heresy. Let us not forget that Mohammed was illiterate.

We have but two options. Either the government and people of Israel destroy all remnants of these abominations and turn back to God, or He will allow us once again to be overrun by the idolatrous infidels. The streets of Jerusalem will flow with our blood as they have many times in our history. The Temple Mount was taken during the 1967 war against all odds and we did not do as we were commanded in Torah. Israel's leaders and and military commanders were, and are, secular. They will not do what is necessary because they do not care about the Temple Mount. Everyone fears the Arab response if their shrines are desecrated. I ask you, why? They have vowed to destroy us regardless. Let us do what we are commanded to do in Torah without fear of reprisal. TEAR DOWN THE HIGH PLACES! Drive the barbarous hordes from our land before they slaughter us and drive us into the sea.I saw a Pogo cartoon once and it said, "we have met the enemy and he is us." This is true of Jews everywhere who have become complacent.